Huddersfield race star Tom Sykes is expecting to be mixing it with the usual suspects as the World Superbike Championship heads for round seven at Imola.

Kawasaki Racing Team rider Sykes is second in the standings and trails leader Sylvain Guintoli by 28 points after losing ground in the last round at Portimao, Portugal.

Hard on the tail of the Aprilia rider and Sykes are Guintoli’s teammate Eugene Laverty and BMW Motorad’s Marco Melandri, and Sykes is banking on duelling with those familiar faces in Italy.

“I think the riders that have been battling at the front so far for most of this year will be battling it out again at Imola,” said the 27-year-old.

“But overall Imola is a circuit I hope we can be strong at once again.”

Sykes has enjoyed some great rides at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari over the years, though last year saw his then Kawasaki teammate suffer a serious crash.

Sykes, however, remains confident and said: “We all have many reasons to have memories of Imola, partly because we have had good results there in the past, but also because my previous teammate Joan Lascorz suffered serious injury there last year.

“I met him at a recent test and it was very nice to see him again.”

Sykes has already shown that Imola is a circuit he can race well at, having scored second in both races at the Italian city centre venue in 2012.

“Imola is a track where even on the older model of Ninja ZX-10R I was competitive,” he added.

“Last year the bike was working great and even though we used a harder tyre than race winner Carlos Checa we pushed him quite a lot.”

A two-day test session at Motorland Aragon, shortly after the most recent round in Portugal, showed both Sykes and current teammate Loris Baz there are still untapped areas of potential in their Ninja ZX-10R machines’ overall race set-up.